Hi chaps
I'm comparing flights/airports for a trip to Majorca and Ryanair is v. convenient at a local airport. However, given their reputation for being awkward, I'm apprehensive about the bike. My bike box is heavy-ish so with easyJet last time I only just scrape through the limits - not that they weighed it. Ryanair's limit is 2kg less. They may not argue the toss... but it'll be expensive if they do.
Anyone got any experience with Ryanair?
Comments
Ryanair staff are trained to argue the toss and weigh stuff.
Make sure it's within the limits, that's my advice!
I've flown budget airlines with my bike no problem. I've had more hassle with BA and SwissAir in fact. But that's not to say nobody has problems with the budget airlines.
If its over the max then you may have problems - its probably a maximum handling weight that they wont budge on. Can't you borrow a bag or lighter box from a pirate ?
I use a bag for mine and even lobbing lots of kit into it I've never got near the weight limits.
Thanks everyone, even people who made such sensible suggestions . Cougie - am encouraged.
I've got the bike box on permanent loan - it's great - don't even need to take the pedals or saddle off. It's just quite laaarrgge... Would kill me to have to buy one... Still. Have time to sort something out.
I don't know what alternatives to ryanair you're looking at, but I flew with Monarch to Majorca this year with a bike and no problems at all. They didn't even weigh it despite stating a 23kg limit on their website.
Thanks, Dustboy. Am just nervous about a bag or pod no matter how many times people tell me they've had no probs. Have heard enough stories the other way round... xx
Dave - thanks m'dear, that's good to know. Mind you, might have been expensive if they HAD weighed it!
Was just hoping to fly from Southampton or Bournemouth because they're both so much more convenient so it was a case of which airlines went to Majorca from them... and it's only Ryanair at the mo .
AH,
There is an absolute limit of 32kg on aircraft luggage set by EU due to manual handling regs.
Have you thought about sending it freight; it may be cheaper?
Thanks Piers. Luckily it just squeezed under that last time, but only just! Good to know they're not just plucking a figure out of the air.
Engineer - I kind of feel the same about them - and that's just on gut feel and press reports. If people in the industry don't like them... that's good enough for me!
Although easyjet are no better.
Last year on an easyjet flight they had the same issue with skis. They had prebooked and registered too many sets of skis KNOWING they would be over weight. Presumably they hoped a few people would forget to show up.
Their first suggestion was to dump all the skis and go without them. Which met with some resistance from the ski owners.
Their second demand was that the last 6 people to check in should f**k off. Which didn't work out either.
So they offered increasing bribes until 6 people agreed to f**k off.
THEN they lost one of our party's luggage. He got a phone call after 3 days, saying it had arrived at the airport (a 12 hour round trip from the resort). He asked if they would send it on, and the response was "f**k you, we're easyjet, come and get it yourself". So he did, and found out that they had cut it open, and stolen half his stuff anyway.
AND they aren't even cheaper than BA. The "low cost" bit is a bit of a porkie.
Never again.
(By comparison, the spanish airline whose name escapes me lost my bike once. They found it and delivered it to me the next day. That is acceptible service)
I have no qualms with the budget service offered by EasyJet, personally. We live in a society where it has (regrattably) become acceptable for companies to decieve people into doing business with them, provided they have some exceptional fine print.
But given how militant Michael O'Leary is in public about cutting corners, it raises some very worrying questions about how he goes about his business behind closed doors. Some of the industry reports on this kind of stuff make for fascinating, albeit terrifying, reading.
And as an aside, I flew KLM recently to Amsterdam. Their service was exceptional and I was very impressed.
Ryanair are w*nkers. Don't have anything to do with them.
The End.
not sure where peeps have got 32kgs from... I'm sure Ryanair has a lower weight limit for bike boxes - they do, just checked their travel conditions. A mate I was with on a trip to spain was overweight (well his bike box was anyway) and he was stung for mucho euros - it's 20 euros per KG overweight. The box he had was a heavy one and even with only his bike in it (forget tools/clothes/nutrition etc) he was over weight, so we had to share bits of his bike around the group to get him home under the weight limit.
As for security and poor handling problems - everything was fine on that score. But as I've only flown once with a bike box I not an expert! I'm sure Barlos did an essay on how to pack a bike box for the IMCH group and everything he said was ace. The essential extra bits you will need is miles of bubble wrap and pipe insulation foam things....
Overall, my one experience with them (Ryanair) with my bike was poor/stressed/potentially very expensive so I won't go with them again - I would rather drive to Spain. So plus 1 on what Toomai said.
Saw this this morning and thought of this thread (second question down).
I hate using Ryanair, and would rather pay more to fly with another airline.
I could pay triple for another carrier for the same journey, but why would I ?
I've had plenty of crappy trips on the big names too - I cant really say that paying extra gets you a higher chance of a better trip ?
It's not so much the actual trip, they tend to be much of a muchness, it's the feeling like I'm having my teeth pulled through the booking process.
I hate that they charge so much to PAY for the damn tickets. That really is just a rip-off. They've made it quite hard to avoid this "optional" charge.
Looking at flying to Salzburg next year, BA are only slightly more*, and I won't feel like I've been gouged.
If Ryaniar just said, up front, that the tickets cost £XXXX I'd be much more inclined to use them.
Oh, AND you pay £6 each way for on-line check-in?!
*Actually, only £2 more.
but the other issue is - what Ryanair do today, others will do tomorrow.
in the "good 'ol days" - in fact until 2009 - many airlines wouldn't charge you for one item of sports luggage (bike, surfboard, skis, golf clubs etc) and life was good. then the low cost carriers started charging, the big boys saw that they could get "away with it", and started to impose charges themselves and boost profits. BA were one of the last to crumble here and they now charge for all sorts of odds and ends.
we're off to South America with the road bikes next month and the faff of finding a decent price ticket combined with bike charges has been a pain. initially flying with 2 carriers via the US looked like the cheapest tickets but when you factor in 8 bike charges (2 bikes x 2 flights and return) the costs got daft. then Air Canada looked good as we would be using them for both legs - until a friend flew with them with his bikes and having already paid for his bike transport, they stung him with a "handling charge" at check in!! cheeky bastards but we could handle that as the flight costs were good but the flights sold out just as we were about to book....grrrrr
finally, we've opted to go with BA/Iberia, much as I hate Iberia for transcontinental (used them 3x before - never been good). as BA now own Iberia so technically we only have to pay one fee each in both directions - but it's still going to cost us about £150 extra for the bikes though which on top of the flight costs is not insubstantial.
If you had those folding bikes, FB, they could have gone in your hand luggage!